


Life wouldn't be so precious dear if there never was an end

by Robron101



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 13:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12749079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Robron101/pseuds/Robron101
Summary: A bird cawed overhead as Aaron dumps the first shovel full of earth onto the body. Together him and Robert bury their darkest secret together, packing it tight with dirt and lies and leaving it behind for the worms and other insects of the earth to crawl in and dispose of.





	Life wouldn't be so precious dear if there never was an end

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently I lied when I said no more canon because this set in Canon and I wrote it tonight. Anywho, I had this idea and it wouldn't let me sleep so here's a little murder and hiding the body fic.

It was three am when Aaron made the call that went unanswered. It was three fifteen when he tried again and the call went to voicemail. It was three twenty-two when the call was finally answered, a disgruntled Robert grumbling into the phone. “What?” He snapped, angry from having been awakened in the middle of the night. He hadn’t even checked the caller ID to see it was Aaron who was calling. 

In the distance a baby started crying and a few seconds later the sound of a door banging open, the cries of the child increasing and an angry mother was shouting close by, “Your stupid phone woke him up! It’s going to be forever to get him back to sleep!” 

“I’m sorry,” Robert muttered. “I don’t think anyone is on the line anymore.” Aaron was though and he listened to all of this, feeling guiltier by the second because Robert is a dad now. Aaron was being selfish, but he needed help. 

“Well who is it? I’d like know who I’ll be screaming at later for calling and waking our son up! I knew I should have made you go back to Vic’s instead of offering a room to you.” 

“Hang on,” Robert pulled back so he could see who was calling him, heart thumping at the name. “Aaron?” He spoke into the phone. Aaron couldn't find his voice to answer, didn't know how to. “Aaron, I can hear you breathing. What’s wrong?” 

“Is he okay?” Rebecca asks as she tries to shush their son into a state of calm. Robert waves her away, a knot forming in his stomach because he knows Aaron is there and choosing not to answer. The silence wasn’t calm and it worried Robert. 

“Rob,” Aaron finally gets out, a mere whisper of his ex’s name, but it was something. 

“Why have you called, Aaron?” Robert tired to sound forceful but worry creeped in, making him sound weaker than he should be. 

“Should I phone the police?” Rebecca asked in the background, shooting fear right into Aaron’s heart and forcing him to shout out. 

“NO! Don’t do that! Don't let her call them!”

“No, Bex. He’s fine,” Robert lied. “Aaron are you drunk?” 

Aaron sniffed down the line, “No. I mean, I was but I’m not now. I need….” 

“What, what do you need?” 

“I need,” Aaron takes a deep breath and thinks what he needs is to be prayed for. “I need you to lie to Rebecca,” Aaron said. 

“What does he want?” Rebecca asked at the same time. 

Robert shushed Rebecca and focused on Aaron. “Why?” Robert asked, he’d do it but he needed a reason first. 

“Please,” Aaron begged. That made Robert ten times more increasingly worried because Aaron doesn’t do begging. “Just tell her I’m drunk and asking you to come over.” 

“He’s drunk,” he pulls the phone away like he’s trying to say these things without Aaron hearing him but Aaron can still understand every word he says. “He wants me to come see him.” 

“Are you? I won’t lie, Robert, it sounds like a bad idea. You shouldn’t take advantage of him while he’s drunk.” Aaron snorts down the end of the line and it sounds angry. 

“Tell that hypocrite that I sound sad and you’re afraid I might hurt myself. Get her away from the room, say whatever you have to.” 

“He doesn’t sound good, Bex. I need to go see him, I’m afraid he might hurt himself,” Robert delivers his part perfectly because Rebecca suddenly looks worried again. “Listen, you get Seb back to sleep, I’m going over there. I’ll just go back to Vic’s after I’m done making sure he’s okay. Aaron,” Robert said into the phone. “I’m coming over.” 

“Just, don’t do anything stupid,” Rebecca warned and then left the room. 

“She’s gone,” Robert told Aaron. “You want to tell me what’s going on?” 

“Come over, Robert. Be quick.” The call ends and Robert’s worry reaches a new level. If it was serious Aaron would have spit it out right then and there, but something in Aaron’s voice was hollow, defeated. Robert _was_ worried Aaron would hurt himself. 

He threw the duvet back and climbed out of the bed, searching for his trousers he’d removed the night before. He put them on and then his shoes, making sure his keys were in his pocket before leaving the guest bedroom and going downstairs. 

He drove quickly to The Mill and knocked on the door. There was no answer and that frightened Robert, he knocked louder still hoping Aaron just hadn’t heard. “Come in,” Aaron shouted just loud enough to be heard through the door. 

Aaron was sitting on the sofa in the dark, looking towards the staircase. “Hey,” Robert said softly so as not to disrupt the silence too much. Aaron’s eyes didn’t waver from the staircase. “Aaron, you’re… you’re scaring me, okay? Tell me what happened? Are you okay, is Liv… where is Liv?” 

“Gabby’s, I had her stay there so I could go out tonight.” Aaron didn’t look at Robert, at no where else but the staircase. 

“Okay. So, can you tell me what’s happened? I’ve got nowt to go on, Aaron, and unless you-” 

Robert looked down at Aaron’s hands where they were positioned in the younger man's lap. It was dark but the moon was giving enough light through the windows for Robert to see that Aaron’s hands weren’t clean. If Robert didn’t know any better he’d say it was, “Is that blood?” He asked. 

Aaron twitched at that, his eyes finally leaving the staircase and looking down at his hands. He stared for a moment before covering them up with the sleeves of his jumper. “Aaron, _did_ you hurt yourself?” 

“No!” Aaron snapped. “I didn’t.” 

“Okay. So, whose blood is it?” Robert asked as Aaron’s eyes went back to the staircase. “Aaron, answer me.” This wasn’t normal behaviour for Aaron, for anyone. He barely even seemed to be present in the room with Robert even though he sat right beside Robert on the sofa. He looked scared, like he’d literally seen a ghost. It was too dark for Robert to see the tear stains on Aaron’s face or the split lip in the corner of his mouth. 

“Getting over you,” Aaron whispered into the dark, “has been near impossible. I - I er had finally thought I was getting over you, I was finally doing okay. Then… he was born,” Robert held his breath, a gut feeling telling him not to interrupt. “It was like all those old wounds were opened up again and I once again found myself not wanting to get out of bed, or wanting to drink my day away. I put on a brave face and lied to everyone, said I was okay even though I felt broken again. All I wanted was to not feel so sad anymore. I wanted to feel something, anything that wasn’t that sadness that kept stealing my breath from me.” 

Robert held his breath, listening intently as Aaron talked to the staircase. “I thought I could fuck you out, just meaningless sex with someone to make me not feel so - so empty for a moment. I figured if I could just do it once, then I could do it again and again until I met the right one who could replace you. I wasn’t looking for anyone special when I went out tonight. He wasn’t special, just some fit bloke to take my mind off you.

“I asked him home with me and he said yes. He was so eager. We came back here and went upstairs,” Aaron went quiet again, his shoulders shaking as he shivered and Robert still kept with the silence, shutting his eyes and picturing it. Aaron with some random faced bloke, someone Aaron wouldn’t even be able to tell you the name of tomorrow. Aaron started talking again and Robert opened his eyes to stop the images in his mind. “I was ready for it. I was half naked by the time he’d removed all his clothes. He was on top of me, kissing me and I finally wasn’t thinking about you. When I went to grab a condom I didn’t find one but I did find your watch.” 

Robert held his breath, waiting for the shoe to drop. He’d asked Aaron for that watch, Aaron had said he didn’t have it. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about that. “After that, I couldn’t do it anymore. You were back and having that stranger in my bed made me feel dirty. I asked him to leave and he got off me to stand over me in surprise…” 

“Aaron?” Robert said, this time feeling that Aaron would need prompting before he would continue. “What happened next?” 

“He said… no,” Aaron’s voice went cold, empty with the way he said the word. “He told me I was a cock tease, that he felt like he deserved it after coming here. I tried to stop him but he got me pinned to the bed.” Aaron turned to Robert then, grabbing Robert’s hands with his blood stained ones, hard enough to bruise. “I screamed,” Aaron eye’s were wild, widened in fear of the memory. Robert felt his heart thump violently in his chest. “I just wanted him to stop. I felt like that little eight year old boy who couldn’t get his dad to stop.” Aaron choked on a sob, eyes burning with unshed tears. “But I wasn’t,” he whispered, his grip still painfully strong. “I wasn’t that weak little boy and I wanted it to stop so I made it.”

“How?” Robert asked. “How did you stop him?” 

“Adam made me this gift at the scrap yard a few weeks back in the crusher. It was metal compressed into a cube you could hold in your hand. It was really heavy and he’d even carved my name into it. I’d been keeping it on my beside table and grabbed it. I only wanted him to stop, I guess I hit him harder than I thought. He fell off me and onto the floor. When he wasn’t moving,” Aaron began to cry, digging his fingernails into Robert’s skin as he did. Robert let him and tried not to panic and scare Aaron. “I - I thought at fir-first he was unconscious, but… but then I saw the blood. He wasn't, he wasn’t breathing, Robert!” 

Robert gaped, too shocked to find words. What were you supposed to say to someone who… “Is he dead?” Because Aaron hadn’t said it yet. 

“They’re gonna take me away,” Aaron sobbed. “They’re gonna lock me up again. I killed him, Robert. I’m a murderer.” 

“Stop it!” Robert jerked his hands out of Aaron’s grabbing him by the shoulder and shaking him. “It was self defense, he attacked you, they won’t-” 

“They won’t what?” Aaron demanded. “See the dead bloke on my floor and me without a scratch on me. They’ll check my record and see I’ve gone down for assault before and just assume. I can’t go back,” Aaron said brokenly. “I won’t survive it again.” He was too distraught after that to continue, falling against Robert and crying against his neck. 

Robert shushed him, rubbed at his back and tried for soothing even though there was no way of calming Aaron right now. “Shh, shh, shh. It’s okay, it’s all gonna be okay.” 

“H-How?” 

“Because I’m going to make it okay,” Robert promised. Aaron pulled back, wiping his nose with his sleeve and sniffing. “

“You can’t,” Aaron said defeatedly. “It’s too late now. I’m gonna have to go away again, I’m gonna have to leave Liv. You have to promise me you’ll watch out for her.” 

“Aaron stop it,” Robert said. 

“I - I want you to know, that no matter what has happened between us-” 

“Aaron, stop!” Robert snapped, not wanting to hear a sweeping declaration of love when Aaron has just killed someone and is saying it because he thinks he’s gonna go back to prison. “Stop talking like that. you’re not going anywhere. I have let you down more times than I can count,” so many times, “but not this time. I’m not letting you go to prison for protecting yourself. You did a great job in protecting yourself, now let me do the rest.” 

“You have a son,” Aaron said and the groaned, cradling his head in his bloody hands. “You have a son and I’m getting you involved in a crime. Jesus I’m so sorry, Robert. You should leave and I - I should call the police before Liv comes home-” 

“No,” Robert raised his voice over Aaron’s, effectively silencing the younger man. “You’re not calling them. I’m taking care of this and I don’t want to hear another word about it! No one will ever know about this except the two of us.” 

“How?” 

“Because I have an idea,” Robert said, trying to sound assuring even though he’s going to make it up as he goes. “First, I want you to go upstairs to the bathroom, take all your clothes and leave them outside the door, then I want you to take a nice, long shower until the water goes cold. Scrub everywhere, especially your hands and underneath your fingernails. Can you do that for me?” 

“Robert, I don’t think-” 

“Can you do that for me?” Robert asked sharply. 

“Yes.” 

“Good,” Robert sighed. “Go on, I’ll be here when you’re done.” Aaron sighed but nodded and started to go upstairs. “Wait,” Robert called out, “give me your phone.” 

“Robert,” Aaron sighed. 

“Give me your phone, Aaron!” Robert didn’t trust Aaron not to grass himself up. He brought his phone back to Robert and then went upstairs. It was almost five and the sun hadn’t started to rise yet. Robert was tired but it was going to be a long morning and he’d have to fight it. 

Robert didn’t want to leave, but he needed to. Robert’s car wasn’t big enough to fit a grown man in the trunk, a scrawny teenager sure, but not a man. He also needed a tarp, which he was sure Aaron had but he didn’t want that being linked back to Aaron in any way. What he needed was someone else’s car and tarp so if it was ever found, it wouldn’t be traced back to them nor would the other person be the wiser. 

He knew someone with a truck and tarp, even a shovel which would come in handy later. If Vic ever discovered what Robert's about to do she’ll kill him, or at least disown him. He’s quiet when he goes inside Keeper’s Cottage to steal Adam’s keys to his truck. The tarp is in the bed and all he has to do is go around the back of the cottage to get the two shovels Adam keeps out back. He takes the tarp inside The Mill with him, grabs some bin bags from the kitchen and runs upstairs. The shower is still running and Robert can hear Aaron inside crying. Every instinct he has is screaming at him to go inside and console Aaron but he can’t, not right now. He has to focus on cleaning up this mess before tackling Aaron. 

He grabs the clothes Aaron had left outside and throws them away in one of the bin bags. He stops just outside Aaron’s bedroom. The door is cracked open but doesn’t show anything. Robert pushes the door open without going inside and all he can see is the legs of the man Aaron’s killed, sticking out past the end of the bed on the other side of the room. With a deep breath, Robert forces himself to go in, bringing the bags and tarp with him. He lays the tarp out on the floor before stripping the bed of the duvet, sheets and the removes the pillowcases from the pillows. He throws all of that away into one of the bags with Aaron’s clothes. 

He’ll need Aaron’s help to move the body. Rigor mortis takes about three to six hours to set in, Aaron had called him at three but he was probably in shock for an hour before he called and it was going on five-thirty now. It’s probably already started and will make the body easier to move, but even so Robert can’t do it on his own. 

Robert still hasn’t given the body a second glance and goes back out into the hallway and over to the bathroom. The shower has stopped and so has Aaron’s crying. He knocked and could hear Aaron jump, knocking something over. “Aaron, do you have any gloves?” 

“Er… I think there might be some in the cupboard under the kitchen sink.” 

“Okay,” Robert said softly. “Bring your towels out when you’re finished.” 

Robert rushed downstairs and was relieved to find two pairs of rubber cleaning gloves and ran back upstairs to find Aaron standing in the bedroom, staring down at the dead body. “Aaron?” 

“He’s so pale,” Aaron whispered. He closed his eyes and started shaking his head back and forth, breath coming out in sharp gasps. 

“Aaron,” Robert rushes forward and pulls Aaron back away from the body and into his arms. “Calm down, alright? I need you to keep calm because I can’t do this if you’re panicking. We need to clean this up.” Robert lets him go, pulls on a pair of the gloves and hands the other set to Aaron. “Put those on,” he instructs. 

Robert takes a deep breath and then goes to stand on the other side of the bed with the dead body. He is pale, deadly so. The lifeless eyes are wide open and staring up at nothing. His black hair lays still against his forehead and his mouth is slightly parted. He doesn’t memorise the bloke’s face or examine him more than he has to. Robert reminds himself that this man was a rapist and was going to rape Aaron if Aaron hadn’t of stopped him. It makes it easier to look at the body. Rigor has set in enough that Robert can’t close the body’s eyelids, which makes it all the more macabre. 

Most of the body’s blood has drained from the head and onto the floor, creating a dark puddle underneath and staining the wooden floors that would take some good scrubbing to come clean. Next to the body is the metal cube Aaron had used to smash against the bloke’s head. Robert picks it up and tosses it in the bin. 

“Grab his feet,” Robert instructs Aaron. “Now,” Robert says more forcefully when Aaron doesn’t make a move to do so. Snapping out of whatever daze he was in, Aaron does what Robert says and takes the bloke’s feet. They lift the body up, the wet squelching sound of his head lifting out of the congealing pool of blood rises bile to the back of Robert’s throat but he forces it back down and they move the body onto the tarp. “Let’s roll him up,” Robert said. 

Once they have him rolled up in the tarp, Robert asks Aaron to grab two more towels. He uses the first to soak up some of the blood before throwing the towel in the bin bag and when Aaron comes back, Robert uses the other two do the same and then bins them as well. 

He ties them closed and hands them to Aaron. “Throw these down the staircase and then come back up and help me get the body.” Aaron flinches at the word ‘body’ but takes the bags from Robert and tosses them down the spiral staircase, and then goes back. 

“Thank you,” Aaron whispered after they’ve already lifted the tarp wrapped body and started moving towards the stairs. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” 

“Well you wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for me,” Robert said, letting the guilt of it all settle in his chest. If he’d never broken Aaron’s heart then Aaron would have never met this bloke and brought him home. This death wasn’t on Aaron’s hands, it was on Robert’s. 

“Don’t,” Aaron said. “I’ve got enough guilt of my own, I don’t want to carry yours as well. It’s not your fault.” Now wasn’t the time to be debating semantics so Robert let it go. 

It was hard getting the body down the stairs and Robert regrets having the spiral staircase put in. Of course, he wasn’t exactly running through scenarios where the spiral staircase would make it difficult in removing a dead body from upstairs when he’d chosen it. They take a break once at the bottom of the stairs and Robert grabs the bin bags and takes them out to the truck and throws them in the bed. Back inside they pick the body back up and carry it out the truck, hoping to god no one is watching them right now.

“What time do you think Liv will come home?” Robert asked. The sun was up now, it was nearing seven and there was still a giant bloodstain on Aaron’s bedroom floor. 

“Not until around noon. Why?” 

“I’m going to need your help burying all of this,” he gestured to the bag and body. “And we need to get our stories straight and give you an alibi for last night.” 

“I - I… why?” 

“Because someone might’ve seen you with him or seen you leave with him. We don’t know. It’s best to have an alibi and our stories straight. Come on,” Robert said and began to walk around to the drivers side. “Get in and we can discuss it on the way.” 

“Where are we going?” Aaron asked after securing his seat belt. 

“Deep into the woods at the edge of Home Farm’s property. It’s too deep in that no one will go in until after winter and even then the ground will have settled by then and no one will even tell it’s a grave.” Robert drives the truck to the edge of the woods, pulling off into the trees so the truck wouldn’t be spotted by a possible passing car. “It’s going to be a long walk. We’ll have to make it more than once.” 

They take the body first, Aaron carrying one side and Robert the other. They walk about two miles in before Robert decides they’ve gone far enough. They walk back together to the truck to grab the bin bags and shovels. “If anyone discovers what I’ve done and what we’re doing now,” Aaron begins on the walk back, “I won’t tell them you had any part in it.” 

“Aaron, no one is going to find out.” 

“You don’t know that, if they do I’ll cover for you.” 

“Why?” Robert asked, genuinely curious. “It’s not like I’ve never done anything to deserve prison time.” 

“You have a son,” Aaron shrugged. “He needs his dad.” Robert lets it go after that. 

They dig the grave, breaking in through the ground is difficult because it’s so cold but after a while they start getting deep enough to build up a rhythm. They sweat hard, soaking through their shirts and jackets even though it’s cold outside. They dig deep, deep enough that no one will find the body or smell it. Aaron climbs out first and has to help Robert out afterwards. They throw the body in along with the bags and gloves from earlier. 

A bird cawed overhead as Aaron dumps the first shovel full of earth onto the body. Together him and Robert bury their darkest secret together, packing it tight with dirt and lies and leaving it behind for the worms and other insects of the earth to crawl in and dispose of.

They walk back in silence, ignoring how still the woods are around them like nature was condemning them for the act they just committed together. Halfway back Aaron take Robert’s hand and just lets himself feel what he’s been denying himself for months. All those feelings, all those memories Aaron tries to forget, all the late night cuddles and slow morning rounds of sex and the family tea’s just him, Robert and Liv, all those things Aaron has been surpresing for months he lets flood in through the gates he’s put up. In that moment they weren’t Aaron and Robert ex husbands with bad blood between them, but instead just Aaron and Robert, two people in the world who would sacrifice anything for the other if asked. 

And that’s why Aaron called Robert. He could’ve called Cain who would’ve done the same for Aaron as Robert did tonight, he could’ve called Adam who would hide a body for his best mate, but after the events of the night unfolded and Aaron sat sobbing in shock next to the man he killed, he could only think of one person he wanted there with him and that was Robert. 

They straighten out their stories on the way back. Aaron made up a lie to Liv to get her out of the house because he had invited his ex, Robert, to come over and “discuss” their relationship. They ended up spending the night, eating chinese takeaway - which Robert has a receipt for even though that takeaway had been for him and Rebecca but the police would never know that - and then they watched Top Gear because it’s always on the telly and they can’t refute that it wasn’t. As for Aaron’s split lip, they came up with that him and Aaron decided to have sex that night, Robert got a little too enthusiastic and kneed Aaron in the mouth. Aaron had never gone out to that club, he’d never met that bloke and no he definitely hadn’t killed him. 

“What about Rebecca?” Aaron asked. “She knows the truth. You weren’t with me.”

“I’ll take care of her. She isn’t a problem.” Aaron trusted Robert to take care of it if it came down to it. 

Back home they scrub the floor with regular dish soap and water, it gets most of the blood up but the stain had already set in and discolored the wood. Robert runs over to David’s shop since they opened for the day and bought floorwax and steel wool. It gets the stain out but dulls the wood so it’s still discolored from the rest of the floor. 

“If anyone asks, just tell them that when I was renovating I lost control of an electric sander and it scuffed up the floor.” 

It’s ten by the time they’re finally finished. Aaron has remade his bed with new sheets and pillowcases and a spare duvet they keep in the closet at the end of the hallway. He needs another shower after trekking eight miles through the woods and digging a grave, and so did Robert. 

“I should get cleaned up before Liv gets home,” Aaron said. He’d have to wash his clothes right away, shoes too. 

“I need to get Adam’s truck back. Are you going to be okay?” 

“Yeah,” Aaron nodded. Not for a while, but maybe eventually. “I’ll call you if I need anything.” 

“Alright. I’ll be seeing you soon,” and it’s a promise. 

A week and half later the police show up to interrogate Aaron because someone had sworn they spotted Aaron leaving the club with the bloke. Aaron gives them his perfect crafted alibi and Robert confirms it. They have nothing to go on and the lead about Aaron is a dead end. The case stays up open but gets buried underneath more pressing issues. 

They never find him, never find out what Aaron did. That secret will forever stay buried out two miles in the woods at the edge of Home Farm’s property, along with Aaron’s animosity towards Robert - they’re working on being a better them together. Robert’s internal fears and disappointment in himself in always letting Aaron down - he always tries his hardest to make sure Aaron is a priority in his life. And last but not least: the past. It needs to be buried like that body, because holding onto it just makes it seem like Aaron and Robert buried themselves that night instead of their darkest secret, and neither of them want to be buried alive.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks! I hope you liked it! Let me know!! :)
> 
> Title: Acid Rain by Avenged Sevenfold


End file.
